Mad Kitchen SCIENCE!

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Batch #3 worked! I have brewed a passable ginger ale. I made soda!

Okay, it was just from an extract, but hey! I got the bubbles into the bottle. That's a pretty entertaining achievement. (I have to say, using yeast feels a little bit like raising sea monkeys. You get the same sense of having a mass of tiny pets. Except then I freeze and drink these. I am a capricious god.)

Anyway, I have discovered that there are drawbacks to using half-liter plastic bottles. For one thing, I can taste plastic. This has been my curse since I was a kid: I always feel soda (or, in fact, any beverage) is better in cans or glass bottles. And for another, there is no way I am going to drink even half a liter of soda at a time, and once I open one the flatness begins to creep in.

So for my next experiment, I have gotten myself a couple dozen 12-ounce glass bottles* and a bottle capper. This way I can open a smaller bottle each time I want a cream soda--my next extract attempt. Plus, it is super fun to put the caps on the bottles.

I'll probably try to calibrate my skills with a few more extract sodas, on account of I have all these extracts lying around. But I'm getting interested in trying some of the recipes in my books. Got me some various barks and roots and things. I think there's even a recipe in one of them that uses garden roots, like carrots and parsnips and beets and whatnot.

That's right, you heard me.

DEEPER'N'EVER SODA.

BWAHAHAHAHA *lightning crash*

I may be having too much fun with this.


*Every time I have to buy something that comes in a bottle I'm gonna use once and throw away, I think about how much bullshit I have to go through to get just ONE DAMN BOTTLE in a Zelda game. An Empty Bottle is the ULTIMATE treasure. I will battle ghosts and race beavers and break into houses and chase burglars, all for the chance to get a FUCK YEAH EMPTY BOTTLE. Oh, you say you've got some Gold Dust for me so that I can upgrade my sword to its ultimate stabbiness? That's nice--HOLY SHIT IS THAT A BOTTLE AROUND THE GOLD DUST? OH, HELL YES. I can put all KINDS of shit in there!

... It's enough to make one feel like an ungrateful slob when tossing out a bottle after a single use without a second thought..

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

I can't taste plastic, but I can taste the metal in cans. I can tolerate it if I'm going to cook the thing in a can (like a vegetable) but soda tastes metallic and so does canned fruit. "Canned" peaches in glass jars are a wonderful invention :)

We did root beer a month or so ago and it was very tasty. Yael found it too strongly flavored, but I thought it was awesome. We've got the ingredients for another batch. Hmm...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

With soda, I ... actually LIKE the metal flavor. But given my pickiness over plastic, I can't argue with you.

It is stronger! And less sweet than storebought soda. I can see how a kid might be a little unimpressed by it. I'd be interested to see if it changes as she gets older.

[wren-chan.livejournal.com]

*giggles* I always think the same thing about bottles after watching your Not-twin play so much Zelda. OMG BOTTLE BOTTLE BOTTLE.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've got some ginger... liquid... that I reserved after making candied ginger. I've had it in my mind to make ginger ale, but haven't given it much real thought.

[baroncognito.livejournal.com]

Don't make ginger ale. Ginger ale is awesome, but there are so many applications for a ginger flavoured simple syrup.

You can make Ginger Lime-aid, you can serve it on top of ice cream, you can pour it over pears, you can use it to sweeten tea, it's great in cocktails.

It's just so much more versatile the way it is now.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

YUM! That sounds delicious.

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I've made ginger ale from water, chopped ginger, lime juice and yeast, in a 2 liter bottle in the fridge. It's pretty easy

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I often get a similar feeling about the yeasts when I'm making bread ;)

And yeah, I can totally taste the flavour difference between glass, plastic, and metal containers. I don't usually mind it with soda, but I really don't like bottled water because of the plastic taste.

[baroncognito.livejournal.com]

You should make sourdough bread then. You have a starter that you keep and feed, and you take small bits of it whenever you make a loaf of bread.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

No, that was in reference to the bit about them being like pets. Except that in the case of bread, I burn them and eat them instead of freezing and drinking them.

And I do not have the spoons to take care of a starter. I can't handle that kind of regular required task.